The Large Hadron Collider will soon test whether the universe’s fundamental particles obey a hidden symmetry that could explain why matter exists at all. Physicists have a remarkably successful theory—the Standard Model—that describes all known particles and forces. But it cannot explain why neutrinos have mass, why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, or what dark matter and dark energy are. This project attacks those gaps from multiple angles. The team designs new ways to search LHC data for particles that violate a symmetry called CP (charge conjugation and parity), which could be the key to the matter–antimatter imbalance. They also use supercomputers to calculate subtle effects from the strong nuclear force that might otherwise mask signs of new physics. If successful, the work could reveal the first direct evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model—for instance, a new particle or a CP violation in a previously unseen sector. That would reshape our understanding of how the universe’s fundamental forces and particles work. The research is primarily curiosity-driven fundamental science, but similar work on quantum field theory and holography has already linked black holes to the strong force, and could eventually inform models of neutron-star interiors or the early universe. No immediate practical application is expected, but past fundamental particle physics led to technologies like the World Wide Web and medical imaging.
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Particle physics is the study of the fundamental building blocks of nature, how they interact and how they lead to what we observe from the smallest scales to the largest. The Standard Model (SM), which is built on quantum field theory (QFT), is an impressively accurate description of all data to date, from colliders to astronomical observations. Nevertheless, there are many aspects we do not understand from the pattern of particle masses to our lack of a quantum theory of gravity. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will accumulate ever-increasing amounts of data over the next decade; it famously discovered the Higgs particle in 2012 and could possibly discover new physics beyond the SM. So far the only experimental evidence for such new physics is neutrino mass & mixing, which may yet shed light on the pattern of particle masses, strength of the four forces, and observations of abundance of matter over anti-matter in the universe, dark matter and dark energy. Upcoming experiments will address these questions. We have close links to the LHC through the NExT institute and will help experimenters discover new physics, by devising strategies for searches and interpreting the data, for example through our easy-to-use interface (HEPMDB) to supercomputers and the definition of new triggers (to be implemented in the current LHC upgrade) for physics previously overlooked. A common thread is the violation of the combination of charge conjugation symmetry (C) and parity (P), which may be observed soon in new sectors leading to major breakthroughs. In order to be sure that we have found new physics we must exclude subtle effects from the SM, or deduce it indirectly from small deviations from the SM. The strong nuclear force (QCD) can make this difficult, but we have outstanding expertise in computing these effects using state-of-the-art supercomputers and have now reached a level of precision where we must include effects of electromagnetism (QED) and differences in the masses of the quarks. It is important to continue to develop QFT, e.g. new tightly constrained theories have been found that become massless, at long or short distances. We use these to make better predictions of particle scattering and to better understand theories when mass is re-introduced or to work towards quantum gravity. The notion of "holography" has linked apparently very different systems such as QCD and Black Holes. We are developing it to learn more about a quantum gravity, and use gravity to study QCD including in extreme environments such as the cores of neutron stars. We are extending lattice field theory simulations to study gravity and cosmology (early-universe physics), including testing holographic models.
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